John McCain is no hero

I always get a little queasy when people talk about "heroes." Usually they're referring to people who are aiding and abetting the corporate, short-term interests of so-called US foreign policy; often people whose claim to "heroism" is shooting or bombing civilian populations.

So you can understand that I avoid watching the fawning media when they attempt to cover John McCain.

John McCain is no hero. He spent his Vietnam career bombing civilians, and the Vietnamese (quite understandably) tried to stop him. Do his actions justify how he was treated by the Vietnamese? No, of course not. But that's not the question, is it? His actions prior to his incarceration and torture are in question and they were criminal -- he willfully aided state terrorism, i.e., bombing civilian populations in contravention of all the "laws" of war.

And 40 years later he certainly is showing no signs of "heroism":

1. He caved on opposing torture because it wasn't popular with the vicious fanatics who make up the Republican base.
2. He's frantically kissing the butts of the evangelical "rightwing nuts" (viz., John Hagee) while hypocritically condemning Obama for the unsolicited endorsement of Louis Farrakhan.

I'm having nightmares of a President McCain; of another four years of the Bush-Cheney bullshit that has driven this country to disaster.

I have no illusions that a Democratic president is going to do much that is different from a McCain presidency but there's at least a chance that we can make some progress toward getting out of the Iraq debacle, tragedy (dare I say shoah?) if we can organize enough grassroots pressure.